~5~

Two days. Two long, mundane days filled with sleepless nights, stiff stares from the royal members of her race, and silent treks to his room when she dared just to relish in his scent when things became too much for her. Gelda realizes she had become attached. Much too attached to Zeldris. No it's more than that, she muses with a forlorn expression while standing in a meeting her father is having with his army's general and a few delegates of their race. His droning words are deaf to her ears.

She's grown dependent on him. Zeldris to her is the epitome of life and vitality compared to the cold stones of the castle and the bland routines vampires are forced to go through with their inability to travel out during the day. With him around she had been able to live through him, to see what life could be like and feel so many things she never thought truly existed.

He showed her reasons worth getting up the next day, reasons to smile, reasons to laugh, feel sweet bliss, and the wonderful sensation that is love. It can be both soft and gentle, a wholehearted feeling as Zeldris holds her close at night. Or it can be burning and all consuming as it threatens to overwhelm you as he shows her a passion worth melting into. Her attachment to the demon is a blessed result of her love for him. But in just a few simple words he also showed her how easy it is for love to break someone.

Zeldris left… but he was supposed to be coming back, that night even and she wants to believe that he will. She wants to allow herself so desperately the hope, but what exactly is there worth coming back to? She has done nothing but go after him like a desperate feline in heat yearning for him to satisfy her completely, filling her body insatiably with his. He must be tired of her constant pursuance and thinks of her as some lowly vampire beneath him.

Gelda lets out a saddened sigh as her eyes drift down to the ground below her, never noticing the way her father turns his gaze in her direction with a growing snarl across his face.

She ignores the thoughts in her mind that protests her conclusions. They try tell her that what she thinks isn't true. That Zeldris said he would make her his. She just can't imagine it as true. Not with who she is and what she's been forced to do her whole life. She may be a princess by title but she's nothing more than a common wench.

Her hands begin to fist into her dress at her sides, her limbs trembling as her face fills with a hot sensation centered near her eyes. Gelda tenses her jaw as she bores her gaze down at the ground willing herself not to shed any tears, not here not now when everyone can see her. But her vision begins to blur and her heart picks up in a trembling worry that she won't be able to keep herself in check.

"Gelda."

Her muscles tighten forcefully as she freezes in shock at the address, rough, low and every bit as threatening as she knows her father to be. She isn't supposed to be spoken to during these meetings, so why now? She may be the princess but she is merely a placeholder standing at her father's side as he and his court discuss topics she is never allowed to give her opinion on, so why now? Why when she's about to let her mask slip-

"Are you ignoring me? I am speaking to you, Gelda!" His voice scrapes out like graveled stones, booming around the room as he sets his rage upon her feeble form.

Instantly her entire body falls into nerve wracking trembles as the sharpness of him penetrates her. She turns to face him then just as she blinks. The evidence rolls down her cheeks, a hot sensation that she nearly hisses outward in a frenzied curse at her own foolishness. She's proving herself to be the incompetent daughter he always accuses her off.

Gelda watches, as she quickly raises her hands to swipe at her eyes, how Izraf nearly crushes the arms of his throne with the subtle tightening of the muscles in his bulky arms. The wildly livid way he gazes at her stutters her breaths and petrifies her heart, but she has to keep her gaze to his, otherwise she might bring about his fury the likes of which she's never seen before.

"What is this weakness you display before me? Tell me the truth. I already have an inclination of your treachery, Gelda, so being dishonest here would not be so wise," He hisses in a voice so low it vibrates in her ears and weighs heavily in her mind making her feel woozy.

He does not know. He cannot. But still she hesitates to answer as her eyes briefly flick around. The sight of the empty solace of the yawning room the two vampires reside in incites a curse within her mind. The meeting had been over and that's why he took notice of her. She was so lost in her mind she walked right into this mess.

Her blue eyes turn back to his as her heart fills her throat. "Something must have… gotten into my eyes. I did not wish to draw any attention but I failed in that aspect." A terrible terrible lie, but it was all she could think of with her mind giving her blanks at the look her father gives her. As if he'll be entirely happy feeding her to their chimaras meant for their prisoners.

When he rises slowly, his form inching higher and higher as he stands to tower over her form, so much taller and bulkier than her, she stumbles back a few steps before stilling herself. Even if she trembles quite visibly she will face this head on. She brought this onto herself. She wanted Zeldris. He did not want her. If she runs away from this like a coward she would never be able to look herself in the mirror. A whore who also hides from her problems, too? She won't add anymore to her shoulders.

"You dare lie to my face, Gelda, even after I told you that I knew? Those tears were for that wretched demon! I know this to be true!"

"Father, I have stayed away from him as you have wished of me, so that is not-"

The heel of her shoe breaks from the rough way her body twists and falls down the two steps leading up to the throne. When her body finds its resting place scraped against the floor, she feels agonizing jolts racing through her cheek and jaw where her father had struck her. Blood already fills her mouth, the bitter tinge of it making her more nauseous than the dizzying pain she's already in. She hears the dull roar of her heart in her ears as she sucks in quivering breaths.

"I've been to your room and his scent clings there like a disease that refuses to leave! It is as if you two have been living there, breeding there. Is that it, Gelda? Has he taken you to bed? Have you let that lowly demon fuck you, a vampire of royal class? You dare lower yourself to such filth!?"

Gelda winces as she pushes herself up, squeezing her right eye closed as she feels it already beginning to swell slightly beneath it. Her body may be aflame in pain, her heart twinged in anguish over her fruitless love, and her status as princess tarnished beyond repair, but she still finds her way to her feet, unbalanced until she pushes herself out of her gaudy heels, to stare at her father right within his rage filled gaze. "You speak as if you don't know what it is I do, what it is you make me do, I should say, as I bare the curse you gave me. The Thousand Temptations. Why, me "lowering myself to such filth" is the very reason our kingdom has grown so powerful father. So why would the idea of me sleeping with a demon be so revolting, I wonder?"

Her father's face abruptly pales before gaining a bright hue of rage with the climbing of his energy. "You little bitch-!"

Her voice begins to shake as it rises in volume to cut him off as she makes her stand for once in her life. "I did try to disobey you! I did try to charm Zeldris into taking me to bed. Oh, I tried," she tells him with a bitter laugh as her hands curl into fists as she stands tall in her admittance, not filling an ounce of guilt for her supposed betrayal. "But Zeldris is an honorable demon. He knows what I am. That I am nothing but a wench under the guise of a princess."

She rushes on to continue, already seeing her father about to burst at the seams at the prospect, "No he never said such words to me, but it is true. Zeldris has not taken me to bed despite what you believe. And he has no plans to." The room is enveloped in a chilling silence. One that presses in from all sides as she and her father hold each other's gazes for several tense minutes. Neither back down.

But Gelda knows it can only last so long, this moment of silence just waiting for the spark that will send things spiraling into chaos. She winds up turning from Izraf, completely disheveled with her hair a mess around her face. It's a risky move, but she knows being in his presence any longer with him this vengeful is even more so of a threat than turning her back to him. "If that is all, my liege," she speaks cordially while gliding on bare feet towards the exit, the cool stones bite into her soles with each steps she takes, "I will take my leave."

"You're running off to meet that scum again, aren't you?" It's not really a question, the slick way he coils his threat around her throat.

But she does not stop her stride. "Zeldris has no reason to return to me, Sire. You do not have to worry."

Her hand braces against the heavy wooden door that leads to her exit when her father halts her with a few ominous words. "I am far from worried, Gelda. This blemish of yours upon the royal blood of our clan will wreak punishment. Remember that…"

Gelda slips from the room without a word, desperate to be alone and for her own words to not be true. The moment she enters her room, she lets herself sag inward and instantly her tears begin to fall anew. Her father now knows of her activities with Zeldris and he spoke of repercussions. What they may be is what terrifies her to the point of collapsing against her bed where she curls up, dress and all, and just lets her tears flow.

She wants him there, Zeldris. She wants his arms around her as she rests her head against his chest. She wants to feel his warmth surrounding her and to be able to hear the odd sound in his chest as he lulls her to sleep. She wants that security. She wants that feeling of love again.

That's why she knows, when she drifts off into an uncomfortable slumber, cold, broken, and lonely, that everything she believed was true in the end. Zeldris did not return just as she knew he wouldn't.

~.~.~

Another day has passed where she has been blessedly allowed to stay in her bedchamber without any disturbance. Zeldris has not returned and slowly, like letting go to a long held on dream, she forces herself to move on. To climb out of bed soaked in the tears of grief, drag herself to her washroom and cleans herself of the pain that hangs over her head just waiting to drench her again the moment she lets herself fall into the memories. Numb from wondering what it was about her that made Zeldris choose to stay away, Gelda exits her bath and wraps her chilled skin in a towel when a noise in her chamber causes her to jolt. Someone has entered without permission. Could it be…?

Never before has her heart jumped so quickly, been fueled with such hope, her very being trembles light up with it and yet at the same time fragile because of it. "Zeldris?" The soles of her feet echo in damp slaps against the floor as she rushes to the door that'll lead out to her room. Her heart threatens to choke her as she tries to swallow, her hands shakily fighting with the door handle in her haste to get it open. "Zeldris, is that you?" Finally the door gives just as tears start to sting at the back of her throat in her desperation her hope holds her so high.

"No, Lady Gelda, your father asked us to come and prepare you for this evening. He has a very important ambassador coming for a meeting that he wishes for you to attend," one of her helper maids informs her evenly stilling Gelda in place.

The princess stares for several moments her voice unable to come to her as her hope lets her down, leaving her to fall and shatter inwards into agonized pieces. One can only tell from the way she blinks several times, her eyes becoming glassy as she swallows a shaky breath; the blues of her eyes seemingly fracture, unable to maintain the smooth ice that coated them before. The turbulent waters revealed below them as she looks down, raising a hand to slowly wipe away at them, is just as distressing to see. "Oh. I see." It was foolish of her to think the demon had returned. Of course her life would go back to this. Of course it would.

"Please sit here, Princess, we'll hide away those bruises and make you as lovely as ever," one tells her in an attempt to brighten the sorrow that has befallen the room

Gelda merely walks stiffly, resigned to her fate to the chair before her vanity, unashamed of the tears that taint the pale, bruised, and slightly swollen face that stares with broken eyes back at her.

~.~.~

Her father's power fills the room to the brim the moment she enters in precise steps, her heels creating a dramatic typo leading up to his eyes on her, his judgment befalling her. She stands beside him as always, the movements she make drilled into her since she was a little girl learning the ways of her clan. She bows with little emotion and raises with, "Good evening, my King."

The weight of his eyes is heavy, but she hardly feels it locked away from her emotions powerful enough to do her mental harm. Instead her eyes train forward on the doors where the ambassador is due any moment surely.

"Gelda, my daughter, so lovely of you to join me." His voice churns through her with the force of his power, his words suggesting she had a choice in the matter when they both know that was not the case. "I have thought of a way for you to make it up to your clan, your transgressions with that filth you let disgrace your being."

Gelda is wise enough to know where her father's mind has already gone. Make up would not have been placed over the bruise he gave her, her body not squeezed into the floor length gown meant to accentuate her figure otherwise. But she acts curious nonetheless, her voice light yet her eyes hollow. "How am I to gain my clan's forgiveness, father?"

A dark chuckle, laced with oily delight that turns her stomach comes from the vampire towering in his throne beside her. "I'm glad you asked. The ambassador I invited is a very influential vampire. For us to have his favor would raise our kingdom's status exponential, Gelda. I want you to make sure he does not leave dissatisfied with us, do you understand?"

The fanfare announce a being of high statues flares for a moment almost drowning out her affirmation. Of course she understands. This is her role as princess of Edinburgh ultimately.

~.~.~

The man her father wished her to charm follows her up to her bedchamber after talking politics over dinner. Her power flowed through the brunette easily, though his russet eyes were on her the entire evening, hardly needing the help of her power to convince him to give into his desires. His hands mold to the shape of her waist, roaming where they can, while gluing to her with more suction than an octopus. "You are a magnificent specimen." His pompous voice breathes down her neck as he slides behind her in the security of her room. "I cannot wait to explore your every depths."

Gelda smiles as she should, her power no longer thrumming through her as the man acts according to his own whims. "I hope I can please you, my lord." The feel of his palms, large and flooded with excitement at having his hands on her, gliding over the material covering her stomach then bust makes her shudder. He takes it as a sign of growing desire and begins to hasten his movements.

Patience is not high on his list as she hears the material of her dress begin to rip at the back, the carefully done lace up her spine being rendered useless at his hands. She stumbles with the force of his pursual, the feel of his hands suddenly on her skin holding hardly any strength of one who's had to work for anything. Instead she's offered up on a platter as his hands grip and pull at her flesh, guiding her towards the bed as the sound of ragged breathing starts to press against her ears.

He pushes her face first on the bed, her rear high for him to ogle as she grunts into her sheets finding purchase on the palms of her hands. The weight of the bed shifts when he climbs in with her and she pushes herself upwards at the feel of his hands smoothing along her bottom, gripping and feeling her flesh as if he's never experienced such a thing before. She struggles with herself not to flinch or show signs of displeasure, breathing evenly as she is meant to.

"So beautiful, and deliciously pert in this moonlight. You are going to feel so wonderful, my dear," he rasps throatily, ensnared in the prospect of someone so much younger than he.

Gelda's heart slowly sinks into her stomach as she rounds to face him with a coy grin. "Let me prepare you, my lord," she insists while reaching for the top drawer of her bedside table. Inside it is a glass bottle of oil that has come in great handy in these situations. There's no way her body, no matter how much she resigns herself to these instances, makes it easy for whatever male she must lay with to bed her without it.

The aristocrat gives her a weighted leer, the hair lining his lips and dripping down his chin, making her stomach twinge with disgust. She crawls towards him, making sure to be exceedingly provocative in the way her breasts sway, so that his eyes stay there and not on the way her eyes dull when she's within grabbing length. When he sweeps her into his lap, his mouth wrapping around one of her nipples overly wet, she quickly undoes the fastening of his pants, freeing him graciously as he groans against her flesh.

The oil goes on him in thorough strokes, her mind simply focusing on satisfying, doing what she can to make sure the perverted sounds he makes as he pinches her backside keep going. Gelda gasps sharply when he bites particularly hard, her mind going once again to how impatient he is. How all that matters is his pleasure alone.

"Do you like this, little princess?" he pants out of breath when her breast slides from out of his mouth.

"Yes. It's wonderful," she says in a believably low purr. She watches the way his eyes flash with the praise before he's pushing her onto her back as his length bobs between his legs. Sucking in a much needed breath as her mind threatens to whirl right from under her, she spreads her thighs tantalizingly for him while inwardly screaming at how this is her life. This will always be her life. And she will never escape it.

"Please use me as you like."

The man is swift in unbuttoning his pristine white shirt, revealing the flab of middle age. She does not look away from the lust in his eyes, not when he tosses his shirt from the bed, nor when he climbs over her, between her legs. The slickness of him presses against her and then he's filling her body, groaning loud enough for the both of them. Her legs wrap around him as he starts a rough rhythm. Her body jostles with the movements beneath him as her breath flees her lungs at each thrust. She can't stand to look at his face above hers now, turning away to face the door as he rapidly fills her body again and again. He takes it as an offering and places his lips against her neck, the vibrations of his grunts and moans contrasting with the tickle of his facial hair, all of it enough to keep her mind off of him inside her, wet and slapping, hands kneading and pulling as he has his way with her.

'Please just... finish already.' Sweat begins to build as her body pleases him thoroughly, the heat clinging to her skin as she closes her eyes and breathes unsteadily at the brushes of pleasure just far out of her reach.

His grip on her breasts become punishing pulling a cry from her throat he seems to delight in, before his clammy hands find her rear. His fingers dig into her flesh then, making her body arch into his as he all but rams into her with loud desperate sounds. Her heart speeds as a pressure stings at the backs of her eyes, the feeling between her legs now unbearable as he gnaws at her throat. 'Please… just...'

His rhythm begins to splutter, his body falling atop of hers as he thrusts slowly, yet harshly within her shuddering walls. The sounds he makes as her soft youthful body caresses his sickening to her ears. Gelda grits her teeth fighting back tears as she slides her legs from around his waist to plant her feet on the bed meeting his thrusts head on with fluid rolls, determined to have him finish so he can leave her before she crumbles. She feels him pulsing rapidly within her walls just when he pulls out of her. Blue eyes snapping forward to see him grasp himself and begin jerking quickly over her prone figure with thick grunts.

Only his body flies from over hers before that release can be spilled all over her, the crash of his body hitting the wall near her door startling her so entirely she turns her head to him impact with the wall a mere second before slashes are carved through his body. The gory sight of blood and body parts sliding down her wall forces her hand to slam over her mouth as she quakes in deep shock.

Logic guides her head towards her window where the threat most likely snuck in while she and the aristocrat were distracted. However it only takes an instance for her to see him and feel his power stretch outwards irate beneath the cold exterior he dons for her to lose what little restraint she had on her emotions, two tears easily slipping down her cheeks. "Zeldris?" He's seen her in the act, seen for himself what she knows drove him away. More tears fall as she blinks back a choked noise, her thighs closing in utter shame. 'He'll never want me now.' And yet the little voice she's smothered in the time he's been gone tries to bring to her attention that he came back, though she ignores it.

She watches with hitched breaths as he sheaths his sword, his eyes never leaving her figure on the bed. He looks just as imposing, just as attractive, just as impossible to read as she remembers him and this alone brings a watery smile to her lips, her heart swollen with love that pours from the wells of her eyes. He strides towards the side of the bed rigidly and she moves over towards him, hoping and praying he does not turn her away. When his hand goes to the back of her head, curling in her hair as he pulls her to him, she lets out a shuddered sob of relief while her face presses into his chest. Her hands cling to his sides as she inhales his scent greedily, trying and failing to calm.

Then he speaks lowly, his voice as sharp as the tip of an iceberg. "It took longer than I thought to take in my report." His fingers go to soothingly stroke along the nape of her neck when it appears her breathing is reaching a hysterical level. She matches the pace of her breathing to the path his fingers take, back and forth, in and out, imagining the warm trails in her mind in utter content as she holds onto him not ever wanting to let go. His words make the voice she hadn't listened to louder. He intended to come back, things just took longer than he assumed. 'Maybe he still wants me as his? Even after seeing...'

"I now have a new mission here, Gelda." he makes it clear once she rests heavily against him. The ominous tone missed completely until he says his next words. "I'm here to exterminate the vampires."

Her heart stops in her chest as she leans her head up, gaping at him in horror. Zeldris' black orbs pierce her indifferently as a chill climbs up her figure planning on embedding her in icy stabs. "Y-you can't," she hardly whispers past wobbly lips that beg and plead for his words to not be true.

He draws a thumb gently under her eye still tender from the strike she took and she realizes the makeup must have smeared off from her movements in bed. "Your father is not planning to stay faithful to our agreement. The entire clan is to fall because of his underhandedness." He tells her the death of her people as if they're simple facts, clean cut and completely controlled. She has to close her eyes so she won't see the unwavering of his stance any longer.

Her father did this. He doomed her race. He controlled her life from the moment she could think for herself, making sure every single instance she could recall was miserable. And the one light she found in the demon before her was snatched away because of him. Her life being taken away after a hint of what life is supposed to be like. She sniffs loudly and reopens her eyes needing to tell Zeldris at least this once before he follows through on his plans how grateful his presence in her life has been. "Zeldris, I—"

"Gelda, I have another mission of my own to uphold as well." He interrupts seriously he reaches for the gown lain at the food of her bed, where she always leaves it when she's forced to take men to bed, and brings it around her shoulders. "I need you to answer some questions for me, Gelda. " He swipes away her tears as she nods uncertain of what he wants, but willing to do anything for him at this point because doing for him is doing for herself.

"Would you be willing to kiss me every time I arrive home?"

Her eyelids flutter as she gazes up at him astonished, gripping so hard to his sides she's surely bruising, but he doesn't wince. He only continues to hold her gaze awaiting her answer raptly. And it's then as her heart squeezes with hope, her insides warming considerably as she struggles to find her voice, that she notices he's been letting her cling to him; his usual efforts in controlling her motions absent in the way he presses her close, in the way he peers at her. 'He's intentionally letting down his barriers... for me.'

"Yes." She declares clearly as her eyes begin to brighten in imagining a home with him, one he'd come back to.

His eyes seem pleased as they roam across her face. "Would you want to see the world with me?"

She turns her head and kisses the hand cupping her cheek. "Yes."

A fire ignites in his eyes surrounding her in a comforting heat as her outpouring of emotion leaves her jittery and wholly exposed before him. "Will you bear my children?"

Her stomach flips as her lips soften in a smile that outdoes the gentle beauty that paints the sky at night. "I will."

His hands sweep behind her back, one smoothing up to cradle the back of her head as he murmurs, "One more…. Do you love me?"

She doesn't even think. "I love you more than you can ever possibly imagine, Zeldris."

His lips catch hers when he bends down, easily rendering her breathless with the sluggish way his mouth strokes hers. It's such a dream turned reality, a relief from her shoulders, being able to tell him wholeheartedly how she feels. She kisses back fervidly, desperate for his flavor, having missed it so much. Her stomach tightens and her heart leaps towards her throat as he kisses her back tenderly as if biting too hard or pressing into her mouth too quickly will send her spiraling. Just feeling the tease of his tongue at the edge of her lips has her whine laced with pleading, so that very well may be the case.

She can feel everything from him, from the way his lips slot over hers like a piece she's longed for, to the way his hands slide up to her shoulders crackling with tendrils of fire that makes her pull away for just a moment to breathe. It's then she hears him whisper two words that make her realize he wasn't kissing her carefully to be tender.

"I'm sorry."

He was lulling her into letting her guard down. One of his hands at her shoulder squeezes a point that makes her jolt before everything snaps inward, her consciousness deserting her instantly.